Entertainment
Television

'Angry Boys' star a chameleon

Chris Lilley doesn't want to over-analyze why audiences can accept him playing 17-year-old twin boys and also their 65-year-old grandmother within the same episode of Angry Boys.

"Some journalists have said, 'He has a face that can adapt to different looks,' but I think I have a really specific face," said the 37-year-old Lilley, on the phone from his native Australia. "I don't really get lost in the characters (physically) too much. It's pretty obviously me."

The thing is, with his 12-part "mockumentary" series Angry Boys -- which makes its North American debut Sunday, Jan. 1 on HBO Canada -- as well as his previous series Summer Heights High (2007), We Can Be Heroes (2005) and Big Bite (2003), Lilley always has played multiple characters. And credit to the environment he has created as the writer and director, after a few minutes your mind just sort of goes with it.

"I could guess that part of it is I'm pretty fussy with the casting of the people around me," Lilley said.

"When Daniel (one of Lilley's characters in Angry Boys) sits on the bench with his friends, if you took a snapshot you'd think, 'Well, one of those guys has weird hair and is a bit older looking.' But the other boys are so natural and so comfortable with me, I think that's it, it's a combination of all those things."

In Angry Boys, Lilley plays the six main characters. But tying it together are 17-year-old twin brothers Daniel and Nathan Sims, who first appeared in We Can Be Heroes.

"It was hard not to be aware that (Angry Boys) was going to reach an international audience, because I knew HBO was paying for it," said Lilley, when asked if he has sanded down any of the specifically Australian aspects of his work. "But I struggled with that and finally was like, 'Just do exactly what you've done before.'

"I don't even try to guess how Australian audiences are going to react. Some of the press in Australia said (when Angry Boys debuted there last May), 'Oh, obviously he's trying to cater to the American market.' And I was like 'No, I'm not doing that.' "

Lilley's series tend to careen from hilariously funny to heartbreakingly sad.

"I like the idea of making you completely horrified one minute, and laughing your head off the next minute, and crying your eyes out the next minute," Lilley said. "And you're saying to yourself, 'This is a 30-something guy dressed as a woman, why am I sobbing?' "

Of course, with youthful characters such as Daniel and Nathan Sims, as well as an unforgettable teen girl named Ja'mie who was played by Lilley in both Summer Heights High and We Can Be Heroes, Lilley likely has prompted a substantial number of vasectomies around the world.

"The character of Ja'mie, I remember having this horrific realization that if I ever have a daughter, she actually could look like that," said Lilley, who for the record has no kids.

"And she actually could be like that. It's a terrifying thought. I'm a bit worried."